We Will Have Peace
by Rednih
Summary: The past has passed, and all that remains is. . .


When it started, it was sudden and sporadic, a twinge or tug or abrupt, but brief, moment of. . .

The status quo does not apply to their kind, however, and while patterns and habits do exist and rule them to a certain extent, they are not all-encompassing in the way they seem to be for. . . humans. If one in this existence does not learn to adapt, quickly and seamlessly, that one will not survive. Millennia, centuries, decades, even years, all pass and the trick is to pass with them.

The trick is to cast off the parts of oneself which are unnecessary, maintaining only those vital core traits and characteristics. As his Maker was apt to point out, this second life would no doubt be a long journey -- best to travel light.

Such a practice was sound in theory, and even in application for. . . many years, but over time it showed itself for the thief it was. What one started as, how one came to be like this, over time faded and withered and rotted away like so much fuighleach or skräpet, like the things humans ate these days, all wrapped up and small and identical.

Periodically, he gave over nights to thinking and recalling and nothing else. It was comforting to live those days again. He enjoyed it, seeing old friends and companions once more. It was nearly as fulfilling a pursuit as the hunt, and left no guilt or shame in his mouth once he'd finished. He far preferred it these days.

Eimhir was first: Beloved. The hair caught the attention, but it had been the eyes that kept one close. She'd risen out of the great water not unlike a riochd from one of seanmhair's ceadals. That's what he'd mistaken her for, at first. He'd called her sidhe. He had offered her everything on his person in tribute, all to the glory of her beauty and power.

She was not sidhe, though, and she took more than his rags and pathetic excuse for a knife. Eimhir was vicious and cruel. She was selfish, vindictive, easily insulted and difficult to please. She toyed with and mocked her human victims, just as she toyed with and mocked him.

She was his Maker, too, though. She was his first, in many, many things, and she could show love, even appreciation when it struck her fancy to do so. Eimhir was Mother, Sister, King, Wife. She was, for three and a half centuries, the end and beginning. There had been nothing but her, until they changed locations again and chose wrongly. France, it was called now, had been angry and oppressed then. They ought not to have spoken the tongues of Rome so uninhibitedly. It had been a game to them, the challenge of conversing in as many languages as they could recall. Eimhir should neither have raised her voice, nor worn such outlandish and provocative garments. It, too, had been a game, a favorite of hers.

She never knew when to cede, was never able to admit that she was ever less than another. They tricked him, and then trapped her. She saw the sun again. He escaped.

He had never returned to France. It would forever be where his past as a human had died. Eimhir, foolish and glorious Eimhir, had been the only one left to have known him as a mortal. He'd been a boy, not even to his 16th spring, and her face had been the last thing his human eyes had seen.

After Eimhir, he remained apart. He destroyed a group of their kind just north of what is now London. He saw a mortal change shape for the first time in old Russia. She had been a young girl, and then she had been a black bear.

In the spring, several years after Her death, he bathed and stole garb from humans. He walked into a town just after he'd awoken for the night. He listened to the people there and attempted to imitate them and their ways. He came back many nights later, and spoke to a man about hunting and weather. Then the man's woman came and she asked after his people. It was then that he realized how he would seem to their eyes, how he would appear in form to all for eternity.

He followed a certain loose schedule thereafter. He would hunt and scavenge and when he came upon something different, something new and incredible, he would wash off the accumulated clodach and clàbar and investigate. He saw men fighting each other several times, and took it upon himself to end the defeated's misery. He brought death and fed off other creatures' failings. Battles and swordplay were his tributes, his payment owed him by the deities who'd set him before Eimhir.

Men killing and mutilating each other proved a lasting diversion over the years. Dying humans laid out across soggy, bloody fields called him Death. He talked to them, and took down his throat their bravery and stupidity, their pride and strength and, in the end, their transience.

He did this and was content. He saw nothing new in the men, but what he saw was satisfying. He needed nothing else, and rarely came across others of his kind.

Many things were suddenly to change, though. He was again the haunt, the Demon, Death at the edge of the skirmish, but something would begin that night that would never truly end.

It was the tall one who, while many of the humans also before him were possessed of similar height and reach, caught his attention. These men fought in the dark with only fire, built up in a few encircling pits, to show them friend from foe. The plain was bathed in orange and red light, and red and black blood. The tall one's hair reflected the light, rather than swallowing it. It was pale then, and the man himself was pale, where he wasn't already covered in steaming blood. He wanted that one, that warrior of such skill and terror. That one was a worthy tribute, for the man's enemies ducked away from him, searching out easier targets in the night. Such valor and might was only his fitting reward after years and years. Perhaps in another thousand, he would be allowed another such as this.

He slipped his fangs down and watched his tribute as it was made ready.

***

Eric was to be his only creation. There would be no other, and it would be in no way their eventual separation that led to his failing. Such a thing was inevitable. Eric had had nothing to do with it.

He was a magnificent companion. Joy, lust, hunger, humor, and affection were his gifts. He gave of himself surprisingly freely, considering from just where and when he had come, and nothing was too much of a challenge for him. Eric had a temper, but it was cool and smooth, instead of Eimhir's poisonously searing fury. He was cool of temperament, as well. Cool, not cold, for let it never be said that there wasn't passion and feeling beneath that stoic Viking of old.

He and Eric did not play games the way he and his own Maker had. They toyed with each other, teasing and mocking and pretending, but humans were food and information, not entertainment, necessarily. Eimhir had tortured her prey, had loved drawing out the pain and making them hoarse with their screams. Eric loved the thrill of the hunt, the pleasure of the kill, the quenching of the Thirst that ran deep within them. He loved being Vampire, but he was not evil. He did not revel in mayhem in the same manner as some of their kind. Eric was, for a very long time, a more merciful murderer than he, himself.

They spent many nights together before he became aware of what else Eric craved in addition to the Blood. He did not mind sleeping in dirt and clodach, but his Child detested it. Eric wanted riches and fancy dress, wanted to own houses and horses and servants, wanted to be a part of the human world. Much like Eimhir, in that, and it was his pleasure to be able to give these things to him. He was the Maker now; he was the guide and example. It was neither difficult to acquire such items, nor sacrifice to maintain their upkeep. Eric was many things, and had many. . . talents, but figures of mathematics held no interest for him. In the years to come, that would never change. Ever would his Child defer that task to others, if not him, then Eric's own future creations or subjects. "I am no accountant," he'd once said to him. "I do not have the joy you do for arranging and tallying money. I'd rather spend it."

Spend it, they did. Eric bought and bought and bought, and then charmed some more out of the human shopkeepers. And their wives and daughters. And sons. Left alone, he had no doubt that Eric would enchant any human to cross his path with theirs. _He_ did not believe in manipulating in such a way, however, and so out of courtesy to him, it seemed, his Child kept his displays to a minimum. Eric called it getting soft with old age. Perhaps he was right. The spilling of blood was no longer the ultimate source of pleasure, no more the be all and end all of his existence. He had been alive, at the time of the coronation of King Henry VIII of England, for more than 1500 years. Or perhaps not-quite-dead would have been a better evaluation.

He could remember all the shades of color in Eimhir's blue eyes, but his human mother's face was forever lost to him. He had seen the first King of Scotland with his own eyes, but could not remember the taste of food. He had seen the city of Rome in its time under Julius Caesar. He had not seen the sun in more than 730,000 days.

He would forever look 15 years old.

Eric tired of him sometime during their stay in Italy. It was easy to see, and although he liked to think himself above it, occasionally he, himself, was ruled by pride. He left Eric when they arrived in Naples, after their two year stay in Rome had come to an end. There would be no note, and Eric would give in to his own pride and write him off as crazy and old. It was true, after all. Perhaps all Makers were as attached to their Children as he was to Eric. Perhaps, if she had not burned, Eimhir would even now be humiliating herself, like he had been doing for the last few centuries, in an effort to keep _him_ close.

He drifted and wandered, and tested himself. First, it had been merely days, but gradually he could forgo blood for weeks, then months at a time.

When he came to the New World, he gave in only on special occasions -- anniversaries, holidays, and the like. He drank three, occasionally four, times a year. It was enough, more than enough. He watched others gorge themselves on the stuff, and barely resisted the urge to return to his ignorant superstition and egocentricity. It was the Age of Science, though, and Death incarnate would be just another mystery to solve.

There were many Ages floating around at that time. There was the Age of Science, the Age of Reason, the Age of Romanticism, the Age of Enlightenment. Soon, like clouds floating across the sky and passing by the moon to the other side, new Ages cropped up, as well. It was the Age of Jazz, the Golden Age of Hollywood, the Age of Aquarius, the Space Age, the Age of Revolution, the Age of Reagan, and, his personal favorite, the Age of Diminished Expectations.

It became the Information Age, and he stopped drinking blood altogether. He agreed to act as sheriff in a territory for the first time because he was the oldest, and whenever he entered a room with others of their kind, everything went silent. He was respected, and feared, and he had very little trouble keeping those Vampires in the area under control. It was easy for him, and it might have been more difficult for another.

He had time to sit and think, and did give in to it quite a bit. The others found it unsettling, he knew, but they also expected it. He was ancient, eternally young. He was also the head of this city and outlying areas, and so he was allowed his idiosyncrasies.

The decision to "go public" was of course not his. He played no part in it. He wished he had, however, wished he had had that same courage years ago, centuries before. He could now look back on that time, when the word Vampire was being spoken somewhere on the planet every second with terror and awe and excitement, and see it for what it was. It was the beginning of his fall. These Vampires had their place, their ideas and their own brand of cunning survival. They did not need him.

He had outlived himself more than 40 times, and that was being generous in terms of age and lifespan. He was someone's ancestor. Some Scot or Irishman today had a drop of his blood running on a loop through his veins. Perhaps he had once drained a relative, sucked dry a very distant cousin. In those first days, back before cellphones, cars, doctors, rights. . . back then, when he'd first been changed, he would have killed his own brothers and not cared. Funny, how more than two millennia later, he seemed to have developed a conscience. And guilt.

And shame.

He can recall with perfect clarity the exact moment he first heard the words "Fellowship of the Sun." He was not disgusted or afraid. One is not afraid of jokes; one merely laughs at them and moves on.

Soon, though, their kind was being captured and tortured and set out. They were told to "meet the sun" and he found it both atrocious and appropriate. Humankind had been their food since the first of them. . . became Vampire. Now, finally, these mortals were exacting their revenge, one bloodsucker at a time.

It was poetic, a setback to the Vampire Rights cause, yes, but poetic nonetheless.

As time progressed now, it seemed slower, like the synthetic blood now prevalent in human food and gasoline shops. Time was still moving, but it was thicker, more meaningful than it had been for a long time. Not since Eric had he felt so peaceful, so right with the world.

He had reached a decision, and all that was left to do now was see his plan through.

Needless to say, it didn't turn out how he'd hoped, not even close. The Fellowship of the Sun was not a noble organization with a worthy cause. It was still just an absurd joke, a band of ignorant, frightened people all clinging to one another in the hopes that they wouldn't get eaten by the monsters. These humans were sad, and desperate, and they were dangerous. Those around him couldn't see it, wouldn't, refused to, but the more their kind terrorized and mocked the humans, the more volatile those people would become. They were getting closer and closer to being backed into a corner, and any animal, when left with no other option, would lash out to save itself. If the humans continued to feel threatened, Vampires would soon find themselves under attack.

After all, daylight was on the people's side, just as much as night was on the Vampires'. And every Vampire had once been human. All that cruelty and pride had to come from somewhere. It would be a battle of matched wits and folly.

The man in charge was not honorable, and neither were any of those who followed him. When he offered himself up, it was in the hopes that all would see their similarities. He was ashamed and tired, and after all he had seen and done and _had_, peace was the only thing he recognized as important. Everything else was impermanent, and faded away. Peace, within and without, was something for which every organism strived.

His great mission failed. It did nothing but stoke the flames to a new height, and nothing could be said to make his error any less egregious. He would have had to have paid a dear price, were he not already set on his path.

There was some good to come out of the whole debacle, however. A few humans were shown for what they truly were, both the disloyal and the self-sacrificing.

And there was Eric.

He was as powerful a figure now, in this world, as he had been in his own. Instead of men rallying to him, though, he gathered fellow Vampires, a human woman, the eyes of everyone in that miserable excuse for a church and in _his_ home. Eric was himself a sheriff, had himself created Children. He was a Maker now.

He needed Godric no longer, and neither did this world. He would find his peace, and someday, through different means, he hoped Eric would too. He hoped all of the earth would find peace, before it was too late.

He hoped. And, at the last, with the epitome of all that was truly good in humanity standing with him, he prayed.

And so it was that Godric, third son of Fearchar, slipped at last out of the world.


End file.
